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Message from the Chair

The Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA) has released a joint statement on culturally safe care with the Congress of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Nurses and Midwives (CATSINaM).

The statement is supported by the new codes of conduct, which come into effect on 1 March and clearly outline the responsibility of all nurses and midwives to practise in a culturally safe and respectful way. Through their leadership, nurses and midwives can contribute to greater accessibility and equity in the health system.

You can read more about the joint statement and the new codes of conduct in this newsletter.

Call for applications

There are multiple practitioner member (current nurses and midwives) and community member vacancies arising as a result of the 2018 round of appointments to the National Board of the NMBA. The closing date for applications is 19 February 2018 5pm EST.

Cultural safety: NMBA joint statement with CATSINaM

The NMBA and CATSINaM have released a joint statement on culturally safe and respectful care.

The NMBA and CATSINaM are asking nurses and midwives to read the joint statement in conjunction with the new codes of conduct, as nurses and midwives play an important role in delivering safe and respectful healthcare to all Australians.

Final domain of new codes of conduct: ‘Promote health and wellbeing’

On 1 March 2018, new NMBA codes of conduct will take effect for all nurses and midwives in Australia, in all contexts of practice and practice settings.

The new Code of conduct for nurses and Code of conduct for midwives (the codes) share four domains of conduct.
The fourth and final domain in the codes is ‘promote health and wellbeing’:

Health and wellbeing: Nurses and midwives promote health and wellbeing for people and their families, colleagues, the broader community and themselves and in a way that addresses health inequality.

This section of the codes gives nurses and midwives guidance around promoting the principles of public health, such as vaccination, and the expectation to act on their own health needs and support colleagues to do so.

Registration

Excluding information from the public registers

The Health Practitioner Regulation National Law (the National Law), as in force in each state and territory, requires the NMBA to publish information about nurses and midwives on the public registers.

The NMBA would like to remind nurses and midwives that if publishing information about you could pose a serious risk to your health or safety, you can make an application to exclude information from the public register.

The application form is available on the forms page of the NMBA website. Each application is assessed individually, and you will need to provide supporting documents or evidence as to why publishing your information poses a serious risk for you.

Nursing and midwifery regulation at work: notification case studies

Tribunal suspends nurse for three months for professional misconduct

A tribunal has reprimanded a nurse and suspended her registration for three months for professional misconduct concerning medication administration.

The NMBA referred Ms Jodi Laughlan to the Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal (the tribunal) alleging that while she was employed as a registered nurse at an aged care facility she:

had misappropriated or failed to account for 7mL of morphine which she took without lawful authority

had self-administered the morphine and replaced the morphine she took with water

had thrown away a post-it-note which noted the medication discrepancy and influenced, or attempted to influence, another registered nurse not to report the discrepancy, and

did not act in accordance with the NMBA’s professional standards.

In making its decision, the tribunal found all allegations proven, except the allegation that Ms Laughlan took the morphine and self-administered it.

The tribunal found that Ms Laughlan had behaved in a way that constitutes professional misconduct. The tribunal suspended her registration for three months (to begin on 4 December 2017), reprimanded her and placed conditions on her registration, requiring education on schedule 8 medications.